Weekend Update

Here's a little bit of what's been going on in my speech room this week. First, I had to make a few repairs. Mavalus tape may be wonderful for many things, but not for fabric. I hot-glued fabric onto the metal cabinet doors and edged them with laminated border. Every day I walked into this:

I finally got some hot glue and fixed it.

Next was the door handle. A little bit of ribbon made me happy!

Not bad for an 18-year-old metal cabinet, huh? Well, it needed one more thing. There's this metal rod that's supposed to go through some holes so I can close and lock the door.

But it always falls out like this:

And after my grad student mentioned twice how it almost killed her, I used an all-purpose simple trick:

I can't lock it, but my confidential and valuable stuff is elsewhere. Locked up. Now maybe my grad student can finish hours without a head injury!

I still need a fix for all of my spiral-bound notebooks. What's the best way to store them and keep them straight?

Finally, I thought I'd give an update on our Presidents' Day activities. The first one was an American Flag from Glyph Girls. These were done by two first-graders. I thought they did pretty well, even if they did choose the same answers! This activity allowed for answering questions, making choices, following directions, cooperating with supplies, and of course, artic words!

I also used Jenna Rayburn'sPresidents' Day Pack. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a voice this week, so I had to adapt. I printed out a what-kind-of-question-to-answer-page for each student in a group and put them in sheet protectors. The students put one line through the question they were going to answer and then got to X it off if they answered the question. The students took turns reading the cards.

This adaptation got in extra artic and fluency practice for the readers. It also allowed a greater variety of what the students answered. Instead of drawing Who? multiple times by chance, they had to answer the whole sheet. And they're reusable! Just clear the sheet protector with and eraser or tissue, and it's ready to use all over again!

Here, one student has finished the questions, so they are all X'ed off. Plus, my 5th-graders figured out a trick. See the 3 P? That's the student's own writing to help her remember her answer is "third president". Yes, I realize that kind of negates auditory memory, but I also thought taking notes was appropriate for her age and a good adaptation for her.

The third student cleared his board before I took the picture, but I drew a red line as an example. If we were just starting the game, the student would be choosing to ask a "when" question.